The Silver Branch

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Somebody came by on his way back from visiting outposts, whistling a tune half under his breath, and checked beside them. Justin glanced up and saw a crested helmet outlined against the moon and was on his feet in an instant, as Licinius’s voice said, ‘It is pleasant up here above the camp; may I join you for a while?’

  ‘Surely, sir. Sit here.’ Justin indicated the sheepskin riding-rug on which he had been sitting, and with a word of thanks the Primus Pilus folded up on to it, saying to those of the band who, mindful of old discipline, had risen or showed signs of doing so, ‘Nay, go on as you were before. I come only as a self-invited guest, not in any official capacity.’

  Justin said after a few minutes, ‘Everything seems so quiet. And by this hour tomorrow it will be as quiet again.’

  ‘Aye, and in all likelihood with the fate of the province settled in the time between.’

  Justin nodded. ‘I am glad the Parthica and the Ulpia Victrix are here.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because they served under C-Carausius once. It seems right that his own legions should avenge him.’

  Licinius glanced at him sideways under his helmet rim. ‘When you go into battle tomorrow, will it be for Rome, or for Carausius?’

  ‘I—don’t know,’ Justin said painstakingly. ‘I suppose for the province of Britain. And yet—it is in my mind there’ll be a good few remembering the little Emperor, among the men who served under him.’

  ‘So, for Britain, and for one little half-pirate Emperor, and not for Rome at all,’ Licinius said, ‘Sa, sa, the greatness of Rome falls into yesterday.’

  Justin pulled a bracken frond beside him, and began carefully to strip the tiny lobes from the stalk. ‘Carausius said something like that to Flavius and me once. He said that if Britain could be made strong enough to stand alone when Rome fell, something m-might be saved from the dark, but if not—the lights would go out everywhere. He said that if he could avoid a knife in his back before the work was done, he would make Britain as strong as that. But in the end he d-didn’t avoid it; and so now we fight in the ranks of Rome again.’

  They were silent a while, then Licinius drew his legs under him. ‘Ah well. I think that we have been talking treason, you and I. And now I must be on my way.’

  When he was gone, Justin sat for a while staring into the fire. His few words with his old Commander had brought Carausius very vividly before him; the terrible little Emperor who had yet thought to write the letter that Flavius carried in the breast of his ragged tunic.

  When he looked up again, Flavius was coming toward him through the bracken. ‘Have you the watchword?’

  ‘Watchword and battle-cry, they’re both the same,’ Flavius said. He looked round at the throng in the firelight, his eyes at their most blazing bright under the wild shock of flaming hair. ‘Brothers, the watchword for tonight and the battle shout for tomorrow are “Carausius! ”’

  The first light of next morning was shining water pale above the woods, as Justin headed down with Flavius and the rest, through the fern and the young foxgloves that swayed belly-high about their horses’ legs, to their appointed place among the Auxiliary cavalry of the right wing. The heavy dew of the summer morning was grey on the bracken fronds, and flew in shining spray as they brushed by, and suddenly, though there was no sun as yet, all the air was shining and a lark leapt into the morning, dropping its rippling thread of song above the massing Legions, as the disreputable band sidled their horses into position behind a squadron of Gaulish Cavalry.

  After that there was waiting again—waiting.

  And then Flavius’s head went up suddenly. ‘Listen! Did you hear anything?’

  Justin listened, his heart racing. There was only the jink of a bridle-bit as one of the ponies moved, the distant bark of an order from the battle-line, and then stillness again. And then, somewhere away below them in the mist that still hung about the lower ground, a faint, low-pitched murmur of sound, like the distant thunder that one feels while it is still too far off to hear. Only a moment, before it was lost in some fold of the land; then, even as they strained after it, the tension running through the massed Cohorts like a wind-ripple through standing corn, here it came again, clearer, nearer: the sound of an advancing host with many horses.

  ‘Not long now,’ Flavius said.

  Justin nodded, running the tip of his tongue over a dry lip.

  Nearer and nearer rolled the blurred thunder of hooves and marching feet; and then, far ahead where the Auxiliary skirmishers held the first line of defence, a trumpet sang, and from farther off another answered it, as cock crows defiance to cock in the dawn.

  The opening phases of that battle seemed to Justin, looking down on it from above and apart, as Jove might do, to be quite unreal; a thing of the ordered movements of great blocks of men, more like some vast and deadly game of chess than the struggle for a province. A game controlled by the tiny child’s-toy figure on the opposite hillside that he knew was the Prefect Asklepiodotus with his staff about him. He saw far away the wavering and billowing line where the light skirmishing troops of both armies came together; he saw, closer in, the solid, grey-mailed blocks of the Cohorts, each under its own standard, with the Eagle of the Ulpia Victrix in the van. He saw the Auxiliaries, their part played, falling back, slowly, steadily, passing cleanly through the gaps left for them between Cohort and Cohort; saw the gaps closing like a door. And now the trumpets were sounding the Advance, and with a slow and measured certainty that was somehow more terrible than any wild rush, the whole battle-front was rolling forward to meet that other host rolling darkly toward them up the line of the ancient track and far across the ferny hillside on either hand.

  Again the trumpets were singing, ringing to the morning sky, Cavalry trumpets now, and the long waiting was over. ‘Come on, my heroes; it’s our turn now!’ Flavius cried; and with the fiery notes of the trumpets still ringing in their ears, the horses broke from a stand into a canter, and they were sweeping forward to guard the flanks of the Cohorts as the valley broadened and the shielding thorn-scrub fell away on either hand. The sun was well up now; far ahead of them it glinted on spearhead and shield-rim, axe-blade and helmet of grey iron, striking sparks of light from the polished bronze of horse ornaments. Justin saw the black boar banners of the Saxons, the swarming squadrons of Cavalry. He could make out the denser massing of standards in the midst of the enemy host, the stiffer lines of marines and legionaries and the gleam of gold and Imperial Purple where Allectus himself rode among his wild barbarian horde. Vaguely in the engulfing turmoil, he was aware of the two battle-lines rolling in toward each other; and his ears were full of a sound that he had never heard before: the clashing, grinding furnace-roar of full battle.

  And now, for Justin, the battle whose opening moves had seemed like a game of chess, became a bright and terrible confusion, narrowing down to his own part in it, while all else ceased to have any meaning. For him, the great battle for the province of Britain fought out that fine summer’s day, was a snarling, blue-eyed face and streaming yellow hair; it was a coral-studded shield-boss and a darting spear-blade and the up-tossed rolling mane of a horse. It was a thunder of hooves and the wheeling and swerving of wild cavalry through the bracken, and the red stain growing on his own sword. It was Flavius always the length of his horse’s head in front of him, and the wingless Eagle in the thick of the press, and the little Emperor’s name yelled above the tumult for a battle cry, ‘Carausius! Carausius!’

  And then somehow the battle was growing ragged, scattering and spreading out over the countryside, becoming no longer one battle, but a score. And suddenly, as though a bright and raging fever had lifted from his brain, Justin was aware of breathing-space, and the sun away over toward evening in a sky puffed with white summer cloud. And they were far to the North, on the tattered fringe of things; and southward the legionaries were rounding up the beaten enemy as sheep-dogs driving sheep.

  He shook his head like a swimmer breaking surface, an
d looked about him at the Lost Legion. It was smaller than it had been this morning, and several of those who still rode with them had some hurt. Little Cullen, still carrying the Eagle proudly erect, its crown of yellow broom long since torn away, had a gash over one eye; and Kyndylan was managing his horse one-handed, with a useless arm hanging at his side.

  Turning back toward what remained of the battle, they came straggling up a long wooded ridge; and from the crest of it found themselves looking down on the Londinium road.

  And along the Londinium road and all across the country below them, like a river in storm spate, was pouring a wild flood of fugitives, reserves and horse-holders probably, for the most part; mercenaries breaking back and streaming away from the battle; a broken rabble of barbarians on foot and on horse-back, flying for their lives.

  Justin felt suddenly sick. Few things in the world could be more pitiless than a beaten and demoralized army; and only a few miles away the Londinium road ran through Calleva!

  Flavius broke the silence that had gripped them all with something like a groan. ‘Calleva! It will be fire and sword for the whole city if that rabble get in!’ He wheeled about on the men with him. ‘We must save Calleva! We must ride with them and hope for our chance at the gates. There’s no time to wait for orders. Anthonius, get back to Asklepiodotus and tell him what goes forward, and bid him, in the names of all the gods there be, to send up a few squadrons of Cavalry!’

  Anthonius flung up his hand, and wheeling his horse was away almost before the words were spoken.

  ‘Cullen, cover up the Eagle. Now, come on, and remember we are fugitives like the rest until we are within the gates,’ Flavius cried. ‘Follow me—and keep together!’

  Justin was at his side as usual; Cullen with the Eagle under his ragged cloak and the spear-shaft sticking out behind him, Evicatos and the old gladiator, and the rest hard behind, a wild-geese skein of flying horsemen, as they broke from cover of the woods and sent their horses downhill, crashing through the fern and foxgloves as though in desperate flight, swinging wide into the midst of the fleeing barbarians.

  XVII

  EAGLE IN THE FLAMES

  THE flood of fugitives caught them up and swept them on and away. A flood that was desperate—and wicked. Justin could feel the desperation and the wickedness flowing all about him, as he dug his heel again and again into his mare’s flank, leaning forward to ease her, in a desperate attempt to force a way ahead, to outride the stream of sudden death pouring toward Calleva, and reach the gates ahead of it.

  The gates—if only the gates were shut in time, it might be that the little city would yet be safe, for this wolfish rabble would scarcely spare the time to break them down, with Asklepiodotus and his legions the gods knew how close on its heels. If only they had got the gates closed in time!

  But when the road lifted over the last ridge, and Calleva lay before them on its gentle hill, Justin saw, with a sickening lurch of the heart, that the gates were open, and the barbarians pouring through. The whole countryside was alive with fugitives by now; with desperate shadows among the trees, fleeing onward and away; and, ever more thickly, that dark stream of men, turning aside from the main flood of their fellows, to the open gate of Calleva and the prospect of loot that was more to them than escape.

  Riding neck and neck, with the Lost Legion close behind them, yelling with the rest, Justin and Flavius swept through between the gate towers. The bodies of half a dozen legionaries and townsmen lay within the gates, which they must have sought to close too late. Allectus had withdrawn the rest of the guard.

  The wide main street running north from the gate was already jammed with the marauders; some of the houses were on fire, and abandoned horses, terrified by the tumult and the smell of burning, were running loose among the howling mob. But a large part of the rabble had halted to sack the big posting inn just within the gates, which, from its size and air of importance, seemed to promise treasure for the taking.

  ‘Down here!’ Flavius shouted. ‘Get ahead of them—’ and swung his horse right-handed into a narrow alleyway beside the inn. Justin and the rest swung after him; a small knot of Saxons also, but they were dealt with shortly and sharply, and the band pressed on. The narrow ways were deserted; it seemed that most of the people must have fled to the shelter of the basilica. In the gardens of the temple of Sul Minerva, Flavius reined up in full career, and dropped to the ground, followed by the rest. ‘Leave the horses here. If the fire spreads they’ll have a chance to keep clear,’ he panted. ‘Kyndylan, come you with me—and you—and you.’ Quickly he singled out about a dozen of the band, all men who knew Calleva well. ‘Justin, you take the rest, and hold those devils back as long as may be. It looks as though most of the town has made for the Forum already—but we must be sure. Give us all the time you can … ’

  They were heading back for the heart of the town, from which came ever more strongly the reek of burning and the shouts and cries of the Saxons. Justin remembered after, though he scarcely noticed at the time, how Pandarus broke a crimson rose in passing from a bush beside the temple steps, and thrust it into the shoulder-pin of his cloak as he ran. Pandarus and his rose for the Arena!

  The lane they were following brought them into a wider one, and they swung left, then left again, the ugly tumult swelling every moment on their ears; and then they were back in the main street. Justin caught one glimpse of the gleaming white colonnades of the Forum at the top of the street, then it was behind him as he headed his little company towards the fight which was now raging lower down.

  ‘Friend! friend! friend!’ Justin shouted as they flung themselves into the thin ranks of the defenders. ‘Carausius! Carausius!’

  There were a few among the citizens who had swords; but for the most part they were armed only with such weapons as they had been able to catch up: daggers and knives and the heavy tools of their trade. Justin glimpsed the purple tunic-stripe of a magistrate, the saffron kilt of a countryman, and in their midst one russet-haired giant swinging a butcher’s axe. It was a most valiant defence, but it could not last. Already they had been driven back half the length of the street. The sudden swelling of their ranks by Justin and his fellows with their long cavalry swords checked the fall back for a moment, but it would have taken a couple of Cohorts to hold that mob, maddened now by the wine of the Silver Garland’s cellars, so that they forgot the danger hard behind them, forgot all else in the wild joy of destruction. The street was full of the smoke of burning houses, and out of it yelling Saxons loomed to fling themselves like wild beasts on the defenders; while at any moment more of them might find their way round by the side streets—there was nothing to prevent them—and be between the defenders and the Forum.

  How long they held up the barbarian flood, slowly giving ground despite all their desperate resistance, fighting back from house to house, from street corner to street corner, Justin had not the least idea. Suddenly they were right back into the open space that surrounded the Forum, and there was no longer any question of holding the barbarians in check, no question of anything but somehow gaining the Forum entrance themselves before they were completely cut off.

  And then Flavius was there, and others with him; Flavius yelling in his ear, ‘The main entrance—barricaded the rest.’

  The arch of the main entrance was overhead, proud and pompous with its marble sheathing and bronze statues, and Flavius was shouting to the townsmen with them, ‘Back! Get back to the basilica. We’ll hold the gate for you—do you hold the door for us when we come!’

  And in the mouth of the deep gate arch, the Lost Legion turned shoulder to shoulder to hold back the yelling horde of barbarians while the townsmen gained the basilica.

  Behind him, Justin heard the retreating rush of feet growing smaller across the sun-warmed emptiness of the Forum. Little Cullen was beside him, the battered Eagle raised high amid the reeling press; Pandarus with the crimson rose in his shoulder-pin; Flavius with his buckler long since gone, and his blade b
iting deep; a rock-steady band of champions to hold back the tide of raging, fair-haired devils that crashed and hurled against them.

  It was a short struggle, but a desperate one, and several of the band were down, their places instantly filled by the next man behind them, before the cry went up, ‘All clear behind!’

  And Flavius yelled, ‘Break off! Back to the basilica—now!’ and they sprang back and turned to run for their lives.